How to Stage Your Home

How to stage your home to sell faster and attract solid buyers.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• At least 30 days for the whole process or, if you have only a week or so, maybe some professional help
• Boxes to pack away unused items around the house, trash bags to toss unwanted items

1. Go through your house with a buyer's eye. Over the time you've lived in your house, you've probably learned to overlook small (or so you think) imperfections. If you have to, take a few hours away to go shopping or do some errands, then come back and pretend to see your house with fresh eyes...the way a buyer would see it if arriving with a realtor for a showing.
2. Chances are, you've learned to overlook some mechanical details during the time you've lived in the house. That leaky faucet you've never bothered to check into? Now's the time to get it fixed! It is far less expensive to do repairs now than to wait and be forced to reduce your asking price. Pre-listing repairs are also more cost-efficient than waiting for a buyer to spot needed repairs and then coming back to you with outlandish estimates.
3. Clean out clutter! If you haven't used a household item or piece of furniture in 30 days or more, choose to either store, sell, or trash it!
4. Once you've cleared out unneeded or unwanted items, take a fresh look at the color scheme of your home. For a quick sale, you'll want to stick to neutral paint colors...off-white, white, cream, beige, and other colors found in nature.
5. Highlight important visual features of your home. The fireplace in the living room, a dormer window, and custom kitchen cabinets are all items that need to be showcased for a faster sale.
6. Let in as much natural light as possible. It's one of the easiest ways to bolster buyer interest in your home, and it's free. Stow away unneeded window coverings, but make sure you don't compromise privacy.
7. Make sure each room looks picture-perfect from the doorway. Buyers sometimes don't even enter individual rooms when strolling through homes, so it's important that your staged masterpiece looks wonderful from the get-go.
8. Before showings, air out your house for at least thirty minutes. If possible, put some fresh fruit out in the kitchen. Natural citrus scents have been proven to create homey atmospheres, but they only come from real fruit! Don't use too much air freshener. If you can, avoid it entirely and opt for a natural breeze.
9. Keep pets away during showings. This can't be stressed enough. There's nothing that will turn a potential buyer off more than to hear your beloved puppy screeching at the door as soon as they ring the bell. (By the way, make sure the bell works. Some don't.)